4 Harry F. Wolcott

"Posturing" in qualitative inquiry? Yes, posturing. As one of base­ball's legendary figures liked to say (was it Casey Stengel?), "You can look it up." And that is what I did.

By conveying two different senses in which the term may be used, posturing draws attention to the issue I wish to discuss here. Accord­ing to my trusty Random House Dictionary (2nd edition, unabridged), as an intransitive verb posturing refers to "assuming" a posture, espe­cially an affected or unnatural one. To posture is to act "in an affected or artificial manner, as to create a certain impression." A negative connotation is implied; when we ourselves are chided for "academic posturing," no compliment is intended. As a transitive verb, however, posturing sheds its negative connotation: To posture is "to position, especially strategically"; "to develop a policy or stance," for oneself or one's group; or "to adopt an attitude or take an official position." In general, then, posturing describes behaviors ranging from assuming an affected pose to taking a strategic position. I suggest that the pos­turing we see among qualitative researchers in education exhibits that same range.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to help researchers new to qualitative inquiry become effective strategists rather than affected poseurs. That is, of course, what other contributors to this volume are up to as well. In contrast to either their more theoretically inclined or more methodologically inclined chapters that describe specific ap­proaches, my intent here is to offer a broad overview to help readers find their way among the many alternatives presented.

Let me begin by offering an analogy for thinking about this hand­book and the "field" of qualitative inquiry that it ambitiously endeav­ors to portray. You probably realize that researchers interested in qual­itative approaches must come to terms with them in their own way. Even in educational research, where we seem on the verge of canoniz­ing it, qualitative research is not a field of study, and there is no clearly specified set of activities or identifiable group of specialists who prac­tice them. To claim competence in qualitative research is, at most, to claim general familiarity with what is currently being done, coupled perhaps with experience in one or two particular facets (e.g., to "be good at" collecting and interpreting life histories, or to "be" a symbolic interactionist). Claims to familiarity often amount to little more than a sympathetic attitude toward descriptive or interpretive work, ac­companied by a far more deeply expressed antagonism for that "other kind" of research to which we have begun attaching the negative label "positivist."

Partial though it must be, the range of approaches, issues, and

i. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 5

applications presented in this handbook goes beyond what any one individual might ever know or need to know, except in a most general way. Ii you think of the chapters as houses, then among these authors some might not feel comfortable going as far as next door, and no one knows for certain what it would be like to visit the entire neigh­borhood.

I draw upon different analogies for my discussion, however, invi­ting you first to visualize the collection assembled here as a market­place, a lively "marketplace of ideas" in which the various contributors might be regarded as independent vendors, or even as "hawkers" unashamedly touting their wares. Do not allow yourself to feel over­whelmed as you pass through the marketplace or feel obliged to examine in close detail everything proffered for your inspection. Real­ize that what you need for a successful visit to and through such a market is a clear idea of what is available that may prove useful to you. The advice I offer to anyone new to qualitative research is to "think like a shopper" as you approach the dazzling panoply and claims assembled before your very eyes.

"All very well if you are a shopper," you might reply, "but what about going to the marketplace just to have a look around, to see what's available?" Quite right; "having a look around" is reason enough for perusing a market—or perusing qualitative research. Feel free to "wander about," treating these pages like a shopper's catalog, pausing for a closer look when something catches your interest. And as you browse, size up not only the merchandise but the vendors as well, What does intuition tell you? What do you know of the reputations earned or the contributions made through the approaches repre­sented? With which approaches do you feel anxious to get started, rather than anxious about whether or not you could ever conduct a competent piece of research on your own? Do you sense anyone trying to foist upon you a magic all-purpose elixir suitable for every research problem, without seeming regard for what that problem might be?

If you are in the qualitative marketplace but not really "in the market," with neither a research problem nor a problem with research as your pressing issue, enjoy the opportunity for a broad look around. Passing acquaintance with what is current should be sufficient for now. At a later date, with a research agenda of your own, you can return as a more discriminating shopper.

Alternatively, perhaps you anticipate being called upon to direct a tour of the qualitative marketplace, in spite of the fact that you feel a stranger here yourself—as have many academics who have had the teaching of a survey course thrust upon them in recent years. This

6 Harry F. Wolcott

handbook can also serve as a guidebook, to provide both you and your students with an overview and an introduction for topics to be explored later and in depth. Far less can be included in these pages than every­thing you may someday want to know about any particular approach, but what has been gathered here offers an excellent start, and biblio­graphic citations provide access to more extensive networks.

The readers I address are those whom, in my market analogy, I have dubbed "serious shoppers." You are not waiting demurely to be won over to qualitative approaches. Instead, you need to know how to make informed choices among them. How do you now decide in which sectors of the market to shop most closely? In brief, how does one gain entrée to qualitative inquiry itself? Let me review two ways to ap­proach it.

The Initial Coin Toss

Like all research, qualitative inquiry has dual facets joined in complementary opposition, much like two sides of a coin. The two sides are the ideas that drive the work and the inquiry procedures with which researchers pursue them.

Sometimes these facets are pulled so far apart that they become hopelessly separated. We seem especially prone to discuss fieldwork procedures as though they are independent of the ideas we wish to explore. We are easily trapped into these positions, particularly when defending qualitative/descriptive approaches from the litany of our shortcomings concerning reliability, subjectivity, sample size, gener-alizability, and so forth.

On the other hand, once we recognize that ideas and procedures are forever joined—that they really are two sides of the same coin— then their complementary features offer alternative ways to approach qualitative study by variously emphasizing one dimension or the other. Two sides of a coin cannot "come up" together; on each toss, one side must prevail. Similarly, researchers assign priority either to ideas or to methodological approaches when addressing a new problem. One must begin somewhere. Research as preached says ideas come first, so I begin my discussion there. In research as practiced, particu­larly in educational circles, we seem to be forever preoccupied with method, a consequence of our psychometric heritage. My treatment of practice will address those concerns.

In bold relief, I first review how ideas help researchers to position themselves and make their moves strategically. In slightly greater

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 7

detail, I then discuss how researchers orient themselves among the basic strategies of qualitative study. Qualitative researchers position themselves by identifying the underlying ideas and assumptions that drive their work and by identifying the procedures they intend to follow. These are the alternative ways to gain entrée into the seeming labyrinth of qualitative inquiry. Ultimately they must be joined as one, but that process occurs gradually, one step at a time.

Idea-Driven Research

To conduct an inquiry of any sort, somebody must have an idea. As inquiry proceeds, the idea that prompted it should become both better formed and better informed. The one critical attribute that qualitative and quantitative approaches share is that each begins with an idea that reflects human judgment. The severest critics of qualitative research sometimes appear oblivious to the fact that all research begins with a totally subjective, hopelessly human decision about what to study. Problem setting is the pivotal act of all science, social as well as not-so-social.

I have chosen the modest word idea as the umbrella term to refer to any and all of the thoughts that drive research. Ideas include every­thing from reported flashes of genius (how I long someday for one of my own!) to the more pedestrian notions and commonsense proce­dures that drive most of our work most of the time. I mean to draw attention to ideas themselves, without reflecting too harshly on the persona of the idea-getter.

For my purposes, three subcategories are sufficient to form a mod­est typology of the ideas that guide qualitative inquiry: theory-driven ideas, concept-driven ideas, and reform or "problem-focused" ideas directed toward redress. Let me say something about each category.

Theory-Driven Ideas In the long run, we are all engaged in what Robert iMerton has

described as "the all-inclusive systematic efforts to develop a unified theory that will explain all the observed uniformities of social behav­ior, social organization, and social change" (1968:39). Those who "think theory" can link up in someone's—perhaps even their own— Big Theory everything that matters to everyone. Most people do not think in terms of grand design or regard themselves as theory builders,

8 Harry F. Wolcott

and qualitative researchers are not especially noted for their ability to either draw upon or contribute to theory. Personally, however, I am of the view that every human is a profound theory builder, so long as that activity is defined to include the myriad "little theories" necessary for each of us to negotiate our way through everyday lives.

In educational circles, both the term itself and the issues surround­ing theory are often bandied about in threatening, counterproductive fashion. Theory is treated more like a moral imperative or a sacred rite than a potentially helpful guidepost. A dramatic instance occurs every time a student being initiated into the role of qualitative researcher is confronted with the terrifying (and often premature) query: "What's your theory?" That question does not necessarily invite intellectual dialogue, even when provoking such a dialogue can charitably be assumed as the intent of the questioner. As I have come to understand the ritual, a graduate student in such straits is expected to answer almost reflexively with a crisp response like "Symbolic Interac-tionism" or "Communication Theory." Unfortunately, big theoretical perspectives like these, which allow practiced scholars to commu­nicate so much so quickly, are also bully phrases that can drive out little theories (e.g., hunches, notions) too modest to have fancy names or protective guilds. To be respectable, one dare not sink beneath what Merton (1968) called "theories of the middle range."

In an everyday sense, as William James observed, one cannot even "pick up rocks in a field without a theory" (noted in Agar, 1980:23). But researchers also use (or allude to) theory to convey social information about themselves in addition to its orienting function for their efforts. Whenever we identify our theoretical bent or expound on our theoreti­cal underpinnings, we show—and show off—our competence in the research patois of particular professional subgroups. That is one of the major forms of posturing in qualitative inquiry. The names of others in our quoting circles, the labels we affix to our work, and our positioning of our work (and ourselves) within a context of other like-minded researchers all provide clues intended to be recognized within our cohort.

Authors are, of course, free to affix labels to their writing, just as they are free in writing itself, but the term theory in a title does not assure that an article will deal with theory, and one cannot entirely depend on authors to situate their work in the most appropriate theo­retical milieu. Nor does absence of the term or failure to implicate theory suggest that theoretical bias—for better or for worse—is of no consequence to the researcher. But theory has become a power term among educational researchers, an enhancer sometimes employed to

i. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 9

suggest a higher order than the business actually at hand. Just think how the term leads to the confusion that Grounded Theory is a theory (which it is not), that there is any such thing as a unified Literary Theory, or that any two individuals ever have or could have exactly the same thing in mind while nodding agreement about Communication Theory or Constructivism.

In my own struggle to remain theory-literate in the overlapping domains of cultural anthropology and the sociocultural foundations of education, I keep a watchful eye for scholars able to reveal the essence of, and note significant contrasts among, contemporary theories. Two circumstances where this talent is likely to appear are in efforts at "stock-taking" (the art of synthesis is certainly underdeveloped in our work) or when someone proposing a new theoretical framework, or revising an earlier one, provides the requisite overview of existing theories (predictably emphasizing their inadequacies) that prompted its formulation.

In one of their earlier papers, editors LeCompte and Goetz pro­vided an excellent example of the kind, of theoretical stock-taking to which I refer. Although their work in that instance was directed toward developing an ethnology of student life in classrooms, they placed their mission within a broader context of descriptive studies accord­ing to what they termed theoretical frames (Goetz, LeCompte, and Ausherman, 1988). They identified five such frames, assigning to each a brief title:

Structural Functionalism Conflict Theory Social Exchange Theory Symbolic Interactionism Critical Theory

I find succinct inventories like this informative and provocative. They serve as a resource for anyone seeking an authoritative citation or wanting to adapt an existing list for a new purpose. Although subject to the incontestable criticism that all such lists are necessarily oversim­plified, this list, in identifying a manageable number of theoretical orientations, offers a useful means for locating major landmarks on the qualitative horizon. For me, the five theoretical positions are like topographical features on a map. True, pointing to major features draws attention from other noteworthy but less conspicuous ones that are the nuances of detail required by both the seasoned traveler and the casual explorer. And one can always ask "Why only five?" or "Why

10 Harry F- Wolcott

more than three?" But recognizing a few major features can be of great assistance to newcomers trying to get their bearings. Arguments about criteria for inclusion or level of detail can come later, after one gets a "feel" for the territory.

I also attend to how others writing about theory employ the term theory itself, noting particularly whether theory appears to be used strategically or simply to affect a pose or mask a persuasion. I have observed that those who use theory strategically are inclined to em­ploy the word as an adjective rather than as a noun. That is what Goetz et al.( 1988) did by inventorying Theoretical Frames rather than Grand Theories. Some authors avoid the potential entanglement of the "When is a theory?" issue altogether by employing alternative terms that do not beg the question such as authoritative paradigms or reigning paradigms (see, e.g., Guba, 1990).

I am neither especially eager to fix my exact bearings on theoretical maps nor especially anxious about my theoretical naivete. Some re­searchers characterize themselves as "theory compulsive" or "theory shoppers," which seems to leave me in a residual category for the "theory reluctant." I take comfort in pithy statements such as A. N. Whitehead's depiction of theory as "conceptual entertainment of unre­alized possibilities" (quoted in Gowin, 1990:82), or Gregory Bateson's reported insistence that one of his data sets was "sufficiently uncor-rupted by theory" to allow for independent analysis.

I do not ordinarily use theory maps to find my way around or to locate my theoretical position vis-à-vis colleagues. I confess that I am awed by the "promise" of theory—what others keep reminding us it will and must accomplish. However, until educational theory gets better, or we get better at it—which will include a clearer idea not only of the various roles it can play but also of the distractions it can provide—I will continue to regard theory as a mixed blessing. It can serve as much as a bugaboo as a help, especially for beginning re­searchers liable to lose their way along pathways they are unable to discern.

Yet I often need to identify my theoretical position in some infor­mative way, especially to communicate with others who carry only that kind of map in their heads. I am ever-mindful that theory is "out there somewhere." On the five-theory terrain described above I can, however reluctantly, locate myself (with Structural Functionalism). I can-—but I would rather not. I prefer to think of myself as work­ing on a gentle theoretical "plain" where distinguishing features are not so prominent, watersheds not so sharply defined. For me, Con­flict Theory and Critical Theory may be on the other side of the

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 11

mountain, but I definitely want to be able to see Symbolic Interac-tionism, and perhaps Social Fxehange Theory, out of the corner of my eye.

Concept-Driven Ideas

Ranking well beneath the prestige level of Grand or Big Theories, or the acceptable but apparently minimum "middle-range" level, are ideas of all shapes and sizes that I will identify collectively as "con­cepts." Concepts are not flashy like theories; you have to press pretty hard to squeeze theory out of a concept, at least those of the "sensitiz­ing" kind (a label Herbert Blumer [1954:7] proposed to distinguish them from the "definitive" variety). Concepts point in an orienting, consciousness-raising, but saucily independent manner. Linkages among them may be tenuous at best, and they often defy the rigorous definition and empirical basis demanded by "precise" thinkers. Those of us attracted to and satisfied with concepts for orienting our research must suffer accusations that we lack precision, like hunters who carry shotguns rather than rifles, or shoppers who are "just looking."

Nevertheless, for anyone who1 has not learned how at least to appear conversant with theory (which is not the same as actually being conversant—a good deal of academic posturing occurs in discussions of theory, as noted), let me commend "concepts" as an attractive level at which to begin. Working at that level—with a concept like "cul­ture," for example—can provide structure without allowing the seem­ing absence of theoretical structure to become overbearing. This may be especially appealing for fieldworkers who find their mission in searching out interpretations for data rather than in seeking illustra­tions for theory. Most researchers who identify with a "school," or who conduct work within the canons of a recognized professional field or social science discipline, work with conceptual orientations. We some­times describe that as working within an "academic tradition," another way of freeing ourselves from having to hook everything up with theory.

Most cultural anthropologists, for example, conduct research in an ethnographic tradition that commits them to cultural interpretation but is relatively noncommittal as to theory. Anthropologists do theorize— about Culture in general, about cultures in specific—and volumes have been written addressing issues of culture theory. Nevertheless, concepts like culture point with an elbow rather than a finger. That is not to render anthropologists theory-less, but to focus instead on the common conceptual focus that brings unity to their work.

12 Harry F. Wolcott

At the risk of a whopping generalization, I hazard the opinion that anthropologists, like most educational researchers, seem more in­clined to "putter" with theory than to move it forward in systematic fashion. Trendy Big Theories are duly acknowledged, with an ever-watchful eye for what one anthropologist has described as the "demi-decadal trade-in of models" (Salzman, 1988:32), leaving everyone free to propose hypotheses and "little theories" at will. Once conceived, however, theories are pretty much left to fend for themselves. Because anthropologists prefer to propose new theories rather than subject theories already proposed to rigorous review, their "little theories," like those of educators, remain largely unattended. That also suggests that anthropological theorizing more often grows out of fieldwork than it is carried into it.

Theorizing among cultural anthropologists tends to be modest; to be called up during the latter, interpretive stages of research; and to become a preoccupation only in later, post-fieldwork years. Anthropo­logical theorizing is also more evident in orienting deskwork, when final accounts are prepared, than in orienting either fieldwork or fieldworker. But it should not go unnoted that some anthropologists, like some educational researchers, develop a strong theoretical bias. Margaret Mead was a proponent of the exploratory potential of fieldwork, yet she herself may have been the first American anthropol­ogist to take a research problem into the field rather than seek it there. (Note the subtitle to her 1928 study in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation.)

One might distinguish "up tight" (or, more charitably, "up front") theorists from "laid back" ones. Among the "up front" kind, I identify most sociologists, psychologists, and economists (i.e., researchers who tend to work deductively, with theory posing their problems and al­lowing them to maintain control of what they do). In the "laid back" category, I include the majority of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and field-oriented or "Chicago School" sociologists. For researchers working in these traditions, theory tends to be enlisted to help understand what already has been observed rather than to dictate what one should be looking for. This same contrast—the "theory-first" and the "theory-after" proponents—might be an alternative way to divide educational researchers into opposing camps at least as distinc­tive as the oversubscribed qualitative—quantitative split.

One of the sometimes unrecognized functions of the labels we attach to our ideas, whether formal theories or casual notions, is that they allow us to communicate with others in-the-know without requir­ing extensive explanation. Another means of "telegraphing" that same

I. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry lo

information is to identify one's research interests in terms of broad academic disciplines, especially when communicating a conceptual orientation to audiences unaware of important nuances (and endless bickering) within academic traditions. The label of "biographer," "economist," "historian," or "literary critic," for example, may signal as much as the average outsider needs or wants to know about the schol­arly endeavors of someone engaging in those specializations. Working in an anthropological vein and identifying myself that way among colleagues in education often prompted the response "Oh, sorta like Margaret Mead, eh?" in my early days as a field researcher in the 1960s, at least among those who recognized that not all anthropologists are archaeologists.

Like lists of currently popular theories, however, lists of dominant themes, or paradigms, or traditions can be finely honed to provide categories that lend conceptual order to the world of social research. Evelyn Jacob is an educational researcher who has described qualita­tive research by identifying what she has termed its major and cur­rently fashionable "traditions." Jacob's initial taxonomy identified five traditions, with a bias reflecting her academic interest in anthropology (Jacob, 1987). Subsequently she added a sixth tradition that heads a slightly revised and reordered list of dominant traditions in educa­tional research (Jacob, 1988):

Human Ethology Ecological Psychology Holistic Ethnography Cognitive Anthropology Ethnography of Communication Symbolic Interactionism

Comparable lists are also compiled according to the labels as­signed to cohorts who work in various traditions. Under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council, for example, Richard Shweder (1984:2) formulated a list described simply as "scholars of various denominations" to identify social scientists with a common interest in the concept of culture:

Symbolic or Interpretive Theorists Cognitive Scientists Ethnoscientists Phenomenologists Psychoanalytic Theorists

14 Harry F. Wolcott

Critical Theorists Contextualists

Those who propose such lists subject themselves to endless criti­cism, both for the particular categories they select (or omit) and for undertaking at all a task that can impose an unbecoming rigidity on the qualitative enterprise. Jacob's initial effort (1987), for example, was criticized by a team of British researchers who proposed two "impor­tant caveats" for readers of her work: "(a) 'Traditions' must be treated not as clearly defined, real entities but only as loose frameworks for dividing research and (b) good research does not stop at national boundaries"" (Atkinson, Delamont, and Hammersley, 1988:243). Their concern focused on defining traditions too rigidly, rather than on list-making itself, for in providing a guide to British qualitative research, Jacob's critics countered with their own list offered under the heading "Approaches." Their seven approaches are

Symbolic Interactionism Anthropology Sociolinguistics Ethnomethodology Democratic Evaluation (or "Evaluation by

Illumination") Neo-Marxist Ethnography Feminist Research

Such lists or maps also may be drawn with only the names of prominent researchers as reference points. Sometimes this is done by way of illustration, when a label is accompanied by the name of one or more widely recognized contributors to the field, as illustrated in a phrase like "Poststructural theory as reflected in the writing of Derrida and Foucault." Such lists can be pitched at a broad level or narrowed to scholars working within a particular tradition (e.g., "Poststructuralism as reflected in the writings of anthropologists like Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, James Clifford, or George Marcus and Michael Fischer").

Just as often, labels may be avoided altogether, an author making reference only to individuals with whom the reader presumably is already familiar. Unfortunately, such blatant name dropping is both overused and abused in academic writing, with citations like "See, for example, Geertz," accompanied by no page references, no specific text, and probably no hint of what we are to look for so that we "see"

1. Pos t t i l i n g in ( Q u a l i t a t i v e I in 111 ii y 1 < )

what our guide wants us to see. (It is paradoxical that Geertz in general—and "Geertz 1973," his essay on thick description, in par­ticular— has become the citation of preference among many qualita­tively inclined researchers, for Geertz himself is a master of the eru­dite, forever referring or alluding to works and lives readers feel they ought to know, even if they do not.)

In spite of the excesses, situating one's work or dialogue with other like-minded scholars—and, even more helpfully, making references to specific pages in specific texts rather than to their persona—serves as a convenient shorthand for communicating frames of reference and keeping one's audiences oriented. Let me digress to recommend against ever assuming in your own writing that readers have read what you have read, know what you know, or could ever perceive anything exactly as you do. Write for an audience that you assume does not know what you are talking about and is not conversant with what others have written on the topic but that is keenly interested in knowing. Don't merely "drop" the names of authors, or texts, or theories; instead, weave them into your discussions with informative context.

Reform or "Problem-Focused" Ideas "Whatever else he may be," anthropologist Ward Goodenough

noted years ago, "Man is also a reformer" (Goodenough, 1963:15). Writing today, I doubt that Goodenough would modify anything ex­cept his gender language, and nowhere is his maxim better illustrated than in educational research. At about the same time, anthropologist Solon Kimball observed (but, I think, failed to jot down) that most educational reform is conducted under the guise of educational re­search. I have chosen the straightforward but admittedly loaded term reform for the third of my three categories encompassing idea-driven research. The word reform, if more widely used, might cast away doubts as to researcher intent; gentler labels mask the underlying commitment to change lurking in "problem-oriented," "decision-oriented," "action," and, most recently, "empowering" research.

What sets this category apart is that coupled with the act of inquiry is an underlying (and presumably conscious) assumption on the part of the researcher that things are not right as they are or, most certainly, are not as good as they might be. The avowed purpose of research is to bring about change directed at improvement. Theories or concepts have dual roles to play in reform: They not only orient the research, they rationalize it (i.e., they lend support to underlying assumptions

16 Harry F. Wolcott

that things are not right). Today's critical theorists and feminist re­searchers convene under the banner of theory but work on behalf of an explicit action agenda with a commitment to change. At the conceptual level, educator proponents of both "ethnographic evaluation" (e.g., Fetterman, 1987) and "critical ethnography" are researchers with an applied or action agenda. "Unlike other interpretivist research," as one reviewer has noted of the latter, "the overriding goal of critical eth­nography is to free individuals from sources of domination and re­pression" (Anderson, 1989:249).

Discussion My three categories—theory-, concept-, and reform-driven re­

search—are neither mutually exclusive nor discrete. Ultimately, ev­erything can be subsumed under theory, even the theory implicit in empiricism that holds sensory experience to be the only source of knowledge, or the theory of action implicit in reform. But I also think it useful to examine research in terms of the immediate concerns that drive it. Among educators, that means assigning priority to reform-driven work. For that reason, a first question to ask of any research effort is whether the end result is to solve a problem or bring about "needed" change, or both. Reform-driven efforts ought always to be clearly identified and recognized, for they employ research in a special way to serve predetermined goals. An incessant "change agenda" drives most educational research, including virtually all school-focused inquiry as well as a great deal of research focused more broadly on educational processes "writ large." The underlying as­sumption is that, whatever the problem, schools are the answer. (I'm not so sure that non-school-focused research ever finds schooling to be the answer, although schools are often implicated as part of the problem!)

That it is essentially reform-oriented or applied does not relegate school research to a lesser role than so-called pure or basic research. Schools are here to stay, the circumstances of formal education are infinitely improvable, and teachers themselves continue to demon­strate a willingness to engage in research that they perceive as relevant to their instructional programs. Perhaps the straightforwardness of qualitative/descriptive approaches has sparked new research interests among teachers. But these days—thanks also to the broadened per­spective that qualitative inquiry has fostered—not all educational re­search is school-focused, and not every "outside" researcher is hell-

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry '/

bent on manipulating treatments or measuring classroom climates. We have been slow to recognize that a great place to learn about the processes of schooling is in schools. We don't yet seem ready to exam­ine how schools may also be great places to learn about human social learning, including learning how to cope with the institution of school itself.

A critical feature of reform-driven research is the initial identifica­tion of the problem or program to which attention will be directed. Whether or not that is a happy circumstance for the individual re­searcher is often a function of personality and most always plays a role in the essential task of garnering institutional support. Problem setting is the epitome of the research act, but few researchers have or neces­sarily even want the freedom to decide which problems to pursue. The influences of both the politics of research and the proclivities of re­searchers are apt to escape us, enmeshed as we are in the social systems we purport to examine as objective investigators. I suspect that few if any researchers actually conceive and conduct their studies with anything like the freedom and detachment which they probably believe essential to their work. But that, as they say, is another story.

Procedure-Driven Research

Identifying a great question for a research study is no guarantee of a correspondingly great answer about how to pursue it. Neither theo­ries, concepts, nor reform implicates specific methodological proce­dures, at least with any precision. An inclination toward Critical The­ory or Cognitive Approaches is hardly a prescription for gathering relevant observational data. A seemingly straightforward, focused ap­proach like Conversation Analysis takes on unexpected complexity with the realization that not even natural conversation is an ordinary by-product of researcher-present research. ("Just go ahead and talk. Pretend I'm not here.") Each social science offers the advantage of structured procedures for conducting research, but that advantage is gained at the cost of having to shape one's problem in terms of how it is customarily defined and investigated by others working in the same tradition. The "sedentary wisdom" of long-established traditions, as critics like Buchmann and Floden (1989:244) point out, offers legiti­mation rather than liberation; the biggest breakthroughs in scientific thinking have often required a break with investigative traditions rather than blind allegiance to them.

18 Harry F. Wolcott

My anthropologist colleague Malcolm McFee used to lament, "Ed­ucational researchers are lucky. They always know what they are sup­posed to be looking at." If that is a blessing, however, it is a mixed one, to be weighed against the fact that educational researchers typically are not well versed in the theories, concepts, or methods of any particu­lar academic tradition. Their career patterns reflect the practical expe­rience of classroom teaching rather than theoretical grounding in a social science. As a consequence, they tend to be not only admirably eclectic but doggedly noncommittal, cheerfully proffering their recep­tivity to all approaches in lieu of thorough acquaintance with any of them. Furthermore, their experience as practitioners often has been gained in a climate overtly hostile to academia, with researchers per­ceived as doing things "to" or "on" teachers rather than for or in collaboration with them.

The question of calling forth appropriate procedures—of striking one's methodological posture—is every bit as critical as the issue of conceptualization. It is the central issue I address here, since several other contributors were assigned responsibility for presenting a range of conceptual and theoretical orientations. I have already suggested one might regard them as "hawking"—trying to get you to "buy into" qualitative study through particular conceptual orientations, estab­lished academic traditions, or calls for reform. Their sales pitches are convincing, their attentions flattering. But do not lose track of why you are in the marketplace—to assess options in terms of your own circum­stances and talents.

These proponents are not only accomplished promoters, they are accomplished researchers as well. They know what can be done by pursuing each particular approach because they themselves have dem­onstrated success with it. In seeking ways to approach your own re­search, the important question is not whether these approaches work, but whether they are realistic alternatives because of the likelihood they will work for you and adequately address your problem.

Method is always adjunct to good science, we are told, and there­fore nothing might seem more preposterous than a method (or method-ologist) going in search of a problem. But that is part of the science myth, not its reality, as ethnographers of laboratory life have revealed (e.g., Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Traweek, 1988). In the real world of research, the most seasoned veterans probably are conversant with no more than one or two different approaches. Among experienced quali­tative researchers, my impression is that the more senior one becomes, the less obliged one feels to demonstrate wide-ranging talents: One's own forte is already established. (Where I think senior qualitative

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 19

researchers often err in later studies is in abandoning the painstaking efforts that distinguished their early work and established their reputa­tions. The tendency is to escalate the scale of subsequent investiga­tions in a way that works against achieving the level of thoroughness or intimacy of detail that gained them their reputations in the first place, i.e., a tendency to examine more phenomena, rather than to examine a particular phenomenon in more depth.)

Although method may be "secondary" or adjunct—i.e., necessary but not sufficient—it nonetheless offers an excellent way to position oneself strategically for initiating qualitative study. If you are not theoretically inclined, orient yourself by examining the techniques employed by other qualitative researchers. Make sense in terms of what you want to learn and ways that seem appropriate and realistic for going about learning it. In an effort to assist in that task, let me first strip these procedures to what I regard as the bare essentials. I will then examine how they are combined to form some (not all!) of the more readily distinguishable styles of qualitative inquiry employed by edu­cational researchers.

The Basic Techniques in Qualitative Inquiry

I propose that the full range of data-gathering techniques em­ployed in qualitative study can be subsumed under three categories of activity. In turn, the categories can be identified by common, everyday terms such as watching, asking, and what might be glossed as review­ing. Restated with more sophistication (but without further enlighten­ment), we often hear these activities referred to as observing, inter­viewing, and archival research. For alliterative as well as pedagogical purposes, the labels I have chosen to use here are experiencing, with emphasis on sensory data, particularly watching and listening; enquir­ing, in which the researcher's role becomes more intrusive than that of a "mere: observer"; and examining, in which the researcher makes use of materials prepared by others.

These three techniques are so basic—and so unassuming—that when we employ any one of them as our sole research strategy we feel compelled to gussy it up in more esoteric language. We do not admit to "watching" studies or "asking" studies. Conducting an "observer" study also sounds a bit thin, although the phrase "observational data" has a nice ring. We elevate watching to the status of "participant

20 Harry F. Wolcott

observation," which clearly has become the label of choice for much descriptive or "naturalistic" research. (I caution, however, that most so-called participant observer studies in education warrant that label only in the sense that the researcher was physically present. "Outside" researchers seldom become involved as genuine participants in educa­tional settings, and they are inclined to express ambivalence as to whether or not their own involvement is desirable or even acceptable. As a result, they become more preoccupied with potential observer effects than with finding ways to become more effective observers. Conversely, teacher researchers, the classroom's natural participant observers, encounter great difficulty disengaging sufficiently from per­sonal experience to be convincing as "detached" observers.)

We do not speak of "listening" studies or "asking" studies or "enumeration studies." Instead, we dignify such work with grand titles like "oral history" or "ethnographic interviewing." Census-taking becomes "household survey" when we parade our techniques before others. We search out, and search in, libraries and other de­positories of public and private documents, but "archival strategies" or "historical research" sounds more elegant than does "going to the library," "reading old newspapers and diaries," or "looking it up."

Some of the myriad combinations drawing upon these three basic ways of knowing have come tobe regarded as distinctive approaches in qualitative inquiry. Any recognized approach may implicate not only a particular proportion of each of the three basic ingredients but also may imply some sense of priority among them and an idea of what we may rightly anticipate in the finished product.

In his classic article "Some Methodological Problems of Field Studies," Morris Zelditch laid the groundwork for analyzing field stud­ies in terms of multiple methods in order to emphasize his major point—that "a field study is not a single method gathering a single kind of information" (1962:566). Consistent with his sociological orienta­tion, the three "types" of method he identified were participant obser­vation, informant interviewing, and enumerations and samples.

I have taken liberty with Zelditch's third category to make his list more broadly applicable to all qualitative inquiry. That third category, enumerations and samples, is adequately addressed through either of the first two; whether the systematic data collection essential for "enu­merations and samples" is accomplished through participant observa­tion or informant interviewing depends on researcher style and re­search purposes. Beginning fieldworkers need to recognize that observation and interviewing yield complementary rather than compa­rable data. What people tell us tends to reveal how they believe things

1. Posturing in Qualitative inquiry 21

should be. What we ourselves observe firsthand is more likely to reveal how things are, assuming that field observations extend throughout an adequate time period. In everyday life, of course, that is why the old days are so often portrayed as the good old days.

Zelditch specifically excluded the examination of documents from his three types of method on the grounds that they represent "resul­tants or combinations of primary methods." I do not concur that the role of document (and artifact) analysis in qualitative research should be so lightly dismissed. Instead, I have created a major category for that aspect of qualitative work under the broad label archival research in-examining. I have done this not only in deference to the dominant research activity of biographers, historians, and philosophers but also to acknowledge that virtually all fieldworkers make use of materials prepared by others.

Zelditch's purposes were, first, to underscore that field study is not a single method and, second, to consider the kinds of questions that each component is best suited to address. As he noted, survey and sampling procedures provide frequency distributions. Participant ob­servation provides information about incidents and histories. Through informant interviewing, we learn about institutionalized norms and statuses. In recent years we have witnessed a growing affinity for the idea (if not necessarily the actual practice) of "triangulation" as a way to respond to questions about the confirmability of data. A broad term like "field study" implies the use of multiple research techniques. Anthropologists make reference to a similar idea with their emphasis on fieldwork as a "multi-instrument approach" (e.g., Pelto and Pelto, 1978:121-122).

Anyone familiar with anthropological fieldwork but unfamiliar with Zelditch's article, or vice versa, might well wonder whether or not "field study" and "ethnography" are labels for the same thing. I take the position that they are related but are not the same. Making that distinction at this point presents the opportunity to examine qualita­tive approaches in terms of their common elements, rather than on the basis of the disparity suggested earlier by my "marketplace" analogy.

Field study and ethnography draw upon the three techniques ba­sic to all field-oriented research: experiencing, enquiring, and examin­ing. What distinguishes between them is that anyone doing ethnogra­phy makes a claim not only about procedures but also that the resxdt will be ethnography. Ethnography is the end-product for the culturally focused description and interpretation that characterize anthropologi­cal fieldwork. Ethnography, therefore, is field study plus something special in the nature of interpretive emphasis, just as field study, in

22 Harry F. Wolcott

turn, draws upon disparate fieldwork techniques but combines them into something more than the product of pursuing any of them alone.

The sets of different labels that move us along from one or more of the three basic research approaches (e.g., interviewing) to a multi-method field study, and perhaps to something even more carefully specified, like ethnography, represent a series of discernible steps. Everyday experience is the starting point, which is then transcribed and transformed through the fieldworker's observing and recording to become the description and analysis presented in a scholarly mono­graph, article, report, or film. (It may also move toward an alternative objective to the traditional ones under review here.)

Along this progression, each researcher makes myriad choices that entail strategic decisions and differing expectations. Consistent with following any particular tradition, a bit more structure may be im­posed about how the reporting should be completed, including such mundane expectations as the "proper" number of pages, the "custom­ary" topics to be addressed, and perhaps even the "usual" sequence in which topics are announced and presented. Or a bit more may be necessary to help the researcher identify, and identify with, some subset of like-minded scholars who share an orientation to a particular set of procedures, a particular tradition, a particular subset of concepts, or a particular theoretical position.

This critical relationship between techniques and outcomes in qualitative inquiry is masked in a marketplace analogy that empha­sizes differences in outcomes rather than a common set of procedures for arriving at them. To emphasize interrelatedness, allow me to draw, and draw upon, a different analogy. Interrelatedness among qualita­tive approaches may be better illustrated by analogy to the branching structure of a giant shade tree, with strong limbs reaching out toward gradually thinning branches that extend from a sturdy trunk repre­senting a common "core" of research techniques (see Fig. 1). This qualitative "tree" beckons researchers to climb into its branches above the "soil of everyday experience" (to push the analogy a bit) to gain perspective on that experience. It is critical to keep in mind, however, that only the perspective from which events are viewed changes, not the events themselves.

Like all human observers, qualitative researchers rely on the same three general categories of techniques for gathering information: expe­riencing, enquiring, and examining. The difference between mere mortals and themselves is that qualitative researchers, like others whose roles demand selective attentiveness—artists and novelists, detectives and spies, guards and thieves, to name a few—pay special attention to a few things to which others ordinarily give only passing

1. Posturing in (Qualitative Inquiry 23

Figure 1 Qualitative strategies in educational research.

attention. Observers of any ilk do no more: We all attend to certain things, and nobody attends to them all.

When such everyday behaviors as watching and asking become the basis for a role definition as "qualitative researchers," small wonder that we look for impressive-sounding labels that help to validate us as

24 Harry F. Wolcott

the self-appointed observers of our fellow humans. We cannot escape either our humble roots in the events of everyday life or the preposter­ous goal we set for ourselves intellectually to make sense of them, as we endeavor, in Geertz's phrase "first to grasp and then to render" (Geertz, 1973:10). Alas, we must accept as accolade a judgment that may not always be intended as one—that we make the obvious ob­vious.

For the social researcher, however, the "tree" of qualitative in­quiry entices with the prospect of a better view (i.e., perspective) for anyone willing to attempt the climb. The climb entails making choices along the way, choices that, for better and for worse—and literally as well as figuratively—can find one out on a limb. Inexperienced tree climbers are cautioned not to go higher than what feels secure and affords safe retreat. That is good advice for beginning qualitative re­searchers, too: not to pretend to be so far "above" the basic techniques that you lose your grasp of what you have observed and understood, nor to try too hard to impress others by extending your reach beyond the point necessary to see what you set out to see. I cautionjagainst posturing that entices you to make unwarranted claims about how far up or out you will go, at least until you are familiar with the choices to be made, where they lead, and the costs and risks likely to be in'volved. By costs and risks, I refer not to risks to human subjects but risks to researchers themselves in pursuing strategies that preclude reason­able alternatives, setting objectives that subsequently prove unattaina­ble, or overreaching in the attempt to "transcend" observational data.

On the other hand, if you lay claim to being or becoming a qualita­tive researcher, you are making a claim about what you can do, what you have to offer. This should be "your kind of tree," and you should be able to get around in it. There are at least two questions facing you: How far do you need to get above the comforting security of data collected through the basic techniques, and what choices will you have to make to reach your intended perch? To be methodologically secure, the labels that derive from the data-gathering techniques on which they are based (in Fig. 1, the major strategy labels Archival, Interview, Nonparticipant Observation, and Participant Observation) offer the security of firmly rooted empirical data. Many a newcomer has been lured to qualitative study by the apparent ease of simply conduct­ing some interviews, making some observations, or becoming a partici­pant observer in order to "do research." A comforting myth is that objectivity and thoroughness are served if one faithfully observes, records, and reports "everything." It sounds so simple.

What is not apparent at first quickly becomes so once such whole-

1. Posturing in Qualitative inquiry 25

sale data-gathering proceeds. Broad labels like Participant Observa­tion or Interview offer no guideline's as to what to look at, what to look for, or what to record. They are no more helpful than being informed that to do archival research, a good place to start is the library. From the very first step up into the tree, then, there must be a guiding idea or purpose.

That purpose is not to be found among the qualitative strategies represented by the various branches. It is brought to the setting by the individual researcher. "Where is Theory?" my students queried when I presented them with an early sketch of the tree that would become Figure 1. They could not locate it as part of the tree itself, any more than a real tree has an idea of how it should be climbed—or why. What prompts the climb is a function of the climber, not the tree. Further­more, there are other ways to get into a tree in addition to climbing its trunk—and there are other ways to pursue qualitative study. Theory, for example, can provide an external scaffolding from which a deduc­tively oriented researcher can reach out and connect with even the most delicate branches without having to depend at all on the sturd-iness of the tree for support or balance.

To follow the tree analogy, let me explore the branch of qualitative inquiry that leads toward ethnography and ethnology, terms heard with increasing frequency among educational researchers in recent decades. Starting at ground level, we encounter a sturdy trunk securely rooted in the techniques basic to all qualitative research. But the trunk of this figurative (and obviously oversimplified) tree soon presents options in the form of major forks and branches. The field-oriented researcher may be tempted to explore archival strategies only briefly— no more than necessary for the requisite literature review or a note on the historical context of a problem—while an educational historian may find no reason to proceed farther, his or her life's work spread out in an immediate network of limbs and branches all worthy of careful investigation.

Next, major forks beckon to one side or the other for the researcher whose problem (or personality) is best suited to emphasizing observer or interview strategies rather than trying to blend the two. Participant observation strategies immediately fork again. One becomes a major sociologically oriented branch leading out along established branches of phenomenology and ethnomethodology, and along a branch of the latter to conversation analysis, or out along slender, newly forming offshoots (only suggested in the diagram) toward poststructuralism and feminist perspectives. Another major branch opens out to anthropo­logical alternatives, with an important offshoot among educational

26 Harry F. Wolcott

researchers leading to the ethnography of communication, and the suggestion- of"yet another, intertwined with sociology in the newly forming Interactional Sociolinguistics.

To pursue anthropologically oriented ethnography, one must fol­low a progression in which the procedures lead toward cultural inter­pretation. That view is unique; no other is quite like it. But to arrive at that perspective, one must forgo opportunities to explore other forks leading to other major branches (e.g., qualitative inquiry conducted in more sociological or psychological traditions, or stressing other strategies; the "tree" is far more complex than what is sketched here, and there is always the nagging doubt that a tree does not offer a suitable analogy at all). There are also critical choices to be made among lateral branches of any major one. Important anthropological alternatives, for example, lead out from macro- or "general" ethnogra­phy to community study, micro-ethnography, and anthropological life history. Like any tree, real or imagined, an individual can only climb "into" this one, not take command of it.

Now, consider. Is ethnography likely to provide the perspective you seek, the coign of vantage from which you want to observe some particular subset of the events of everyday life? Might your research purposes be served adequately by employing the basic techniques used by ethnographers (as well as most other field-oriented research­ers) but making your way along a different "branch" instead? True, the label "ethnography" may enhance your work—if it really is ethnogra­phy. But keep in mind that if you announce at the outset where you expect to go, you will be expected to report back from that perspective. If you are uncertain how genuinely ethnographic your study may be, here is the moment for exercising restraint in making claims.

My choice of ethnography for illustration is not happenstance. Questions about employing that label first drew my attention to "pos­turing" in educational research, of both the strategy-devising and the impression-creating kinds. The problem surfaced with the growing recognition and acceptance of qualitative study that gained mo­mentum through the 1960s and became well established in the 1970s. There were fewer distinguishable permutations in those early days. "Ethnography" had a special appeal; it was discipline-based, vaguely familiar, and neither associated with nor cowed by the reigning psychometric paradigm in educational research. Inadvertently, however, the term implied that all of education's new breed of qualita­tively oriented researchers were conducting research "just like anthro­pologists" in general and "just like Margaret Mead" in particular.

But they weren't. Or, more accurately, not many of them were, and

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 27

not many others were paying attention to the question of whether or not this "new" qualitative interest was meeting the requisite commit­ment to cultural interpretation that had always been a hallmark of ethnographic research. Most certainly it entailed some necessary but insufficient characteristics of ethnography, such as careful and detailed ("thick") description, attention to context, and data gathered in situ and in person. These characteristics also distinguished it from other forms of scholarship like history or philosophy, traditions well estab­lished but typically contrasted with research rather than regarded as alternative forms of it, if not dismissed summarily as humanistic rather than scientific endeavors.

A question still remains as to whether qualitative inquiry is—or should be—so broadly defined that it encompasses long-established traditions like biography, history, and literary criticism, or should be restricted to the field-based, descriptive approaches receiving atten­tion here. Given the self-consciously methodological orientation that continues to (and will always?) dominate educational research, what probably joins all qualitative approaches in most minds is not a pre­sumed uniformity of method as much as a prevailing notion among outsiders that what we "qualitative types" have in common is the absence of any method at all.

Qualitative researchers in education have never agreed among themselves about whether to make more of the differences among their approaches (as suggested by the marketplace analogy of competing and seemingly independent vendors) or to emphasize their com­monality (as suggested by the tree analogy) in order to effect a common front. The latter position was epitomized several years ago in an impor­tant article written by Louis VI. Smith, one of qualitative/descriptive research's earliest and most energetic proponents and practitioners. Although preparing a broad overview addressed to "the genre of re­search that is coming to be known by such varied labels as educational ethnography, participant observation, qualitative observation, case study, or field study," Smith elected to ignore distinguishing features among them. "For the most part," he stated, "I will use these terms as synonyms" (Smith, 1979:316).

A number of qualitatively oriented educational researchers, in­cluding some like myself of anthropological persuasion looking to protect fair Ethnography's name, have taken a different view. We feel that qualitative inquiry is better served not only by acknowledging the research techniques shared in common among qualitative approaches but also by recognizing how the techniques are variously employed, adapted, and combined to achieve different purposes. We take issue

28 Harry F. Wolcott

with the idea of treating the labels as synonyms. The tree we envision grows out like a massive oak rather than up like a tall pine.

I first approached this topic of "ethnographicness" in a 1975 arti­cle, "Criteria for an ethnographic approach to research in schools," followed in 1980 with "How to look like an anthropologist without being one." I felt awkward when confronted with the argument that the differences I sought to preserve were "only academic," but I held my ground, insisting that, after all, we are academics. We have an obligation to recognize genres. We may intentionally adapt or mix them, but we should not indiscriminately blur them or ignore the contribution each might make if pursued in its pristine form. However, I also recognized the frustration of researchers sympathetic to quali­tative approaches who felt that, just when they finally had found a way to legitimate their naturalistic leanings by employing the label "ethnography," others were insisting that their work was not eth­nographic after all and should not be so labeled.

Even today, Lou Smith insists that his case studies are ethnogra­phies (e.g., Smith, Prunty, Dwyer, and Kleine, 1987:5; see also Smith, 1990) and can be regarded as ethnologies as well (Smith et al,, 1987:13—21). And I still argue that they are not. My argument follows the line of reasoning reviewed here, that Smith and his co-researchers effectively employ the fieldwork techniques used by (but are by no means exclusive to) ethnographers, but they do not make the requisite commitment to cultural interpretation. Nor do I argue that they should, for to do so would detract from Smith's own eclectic strategies and freewheeling interpretations clearly intended to help student and practitioner alike achieve an integrated and interdisciplinary (eth­nography, history, and biography) approach to educational inquiry— rather than to make more astute anthropological fieldworkers of them.

We ethnographic purists don't really expect to convince Lou Smith, or other heavy "borrowers," of the need for preserving ethno­graphic purity. Nonetheless, in the prolonged but amiable dialogue that has ensued, we have been able to alert waves of qualitative re­searchers—who otherwise might have followed unquestioningly in those footsteps—to be cautious in choosing between "doing ethnogra­phy" and "borrowing ethnographic techniques." That distinction has proven salutary, I believe, as more—and more clearly distin­guishable—styles for conducting qualitative inquiry have been intro­duced, styles developed out of field-based procedures but free of the exclusive dependency on ethnography for their validation as wit­nessed earlier. Among the better-established qualitative approaches today (including some talked about more than practiced) are human

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 29

ethology, phenomenology, ethnomethodology, investigative journalism, and eonnoisseurship/criticism. Among "budding" newcomers arc poststructuralism, interactional sociolinguistics, constructivism, and feminist perspectives. One would have to stretch to regard such varied approaches as "synonyms."

Some End-Products of Field-Oriented Studies in Education

In the previous section, I suggested that the common roots of qualitative inquiry can be found in three major data-gathering tech­niques basic to everyday life. By way of illustration, I followed these techniques along one important branch of research to show how they can lead to ethnography and ethnology. A researcher makes choices all along the way to arrive at any particular end product, and, of course, something must result from these efforts. In this section, I want to make note of a number of alternative end-products in field-oriented research. I have summarized this material in Table 1, which follows the same set of research strategies presented in the tree analogy. Here the focus is on outcomes in terms of the customary product of field-oriented research, the written report, rather than on alternative out­comes or processes. (For more on writing processes in qualitative research, see Richardson, 1990; Wolcott, 1990.)

This different emphasis calls for departures from the tree analogy and the tree diagram presented in Fig. 1. The first difference is that, in keeping with a focus on field-oriented research, I have not pursued the branch of inquiry that leads exclusively into archival research. Field-oriented researchers do make use of existing materials oí all sorts. However, the scholarly approaches that rely most exclusively on such materials—historians, for example—have their own long traditions, and it is oui: of the question to try to encompass all that work here. Whether or not educational historians and philosophers (and biogra­phers, to look at another established branch of inquiry) are to be, or wish to be, numbered among the constituents of the newly defined qualitative enterprise also remains at issue. This ambivalence is re­flected in edited collections in the past few years in which historians, philosophers, and biographers sometimes make an appearance and sometimes do not. Eisner and Peshkin (1990), for example, invited educational philosophers to join their dialogue; Jaeger (1988) invited historical as well as philosophical contributions; and Sherman and

w o

Table 1. Some End Products of Field-Oriented Studies in Education"

Genre Illustrative types Central concern Variations

Foundations and procedures

Models of completed work

Case study Broadly defined; The case itself is virtually any type of regarded as a study described bounded system below may be reported as a case study

Nonparticipant observation study

Observer study

Human ethology

Observer acknowledged but not involved

Description of social behavior patterned on animal studies

Sometimes categorized according to intent (e.g., descriptive, exploratory, explanatory)

Field study in formal organizations

Single subject or N = 1 research''

Studies of behavior settings

Studies of classroom interaction

Becker, 1990; Harvard Business School "cases" (e.g., Christensen, 1987); Merriam, 1988; Stake, 1978, 1988; Yin, 1984

Administrative Science Quarterly (Winter, 1980)

Hersen and Barlow, 1976; Kratochwill, 1977, 1978

Ambrose, 1978

Kyle, 1987; Reid and Walker, 1975; Schón, 1991; Stake and Easley, 1978

Lutz and Iannaccone, 1969; Popkewitz and Tabachnick, 1981

Barker, 1968; Barker and Wright, 1955; Gump, 1967

Biddle, 1967; Bossert, 1979;. Cazden, 1988; Erickson and Mohatt, 1982; Jackson, 1968

Blurton-Jones, 1972; McGrew, 1972

Connoisseurs hip/ criticism

Portraiture; vignettes

Interview study Investigative journalism

Oral History

Linking the art of appreciation and the art of disclosure

The artist's shaping hand captures essential features in quick, broad strokes

Event-focused and current

Nonrecorded history

Journalistic reporting

Depth reporting

Reform journalism

Precision journalism

Oral history

Anthropological life history

Conceptualized as a form of educational evaluation by Eisner (1976, 1977, 1981, 1985, 1991)

Harrison and Stein, 1973; Lovell, 1983; Ullman and Honeymoon, 1983

Copple, 1964

Meyer, 1973

Dollard, 1937; Hoopes, 1979; Thompson, 1978; Vansina, 1985

Goodson, 1980; Langness and Frank, 1981; Watson and Watson-Franke, 1985

Alexander, 1977, 1980; Barone, 1983; McCutcheon, 1976, 1978

Daedalus (Fall, 1981); Lightfoot, 1983; Perrone, 1985

Cuba, I981a,bc

Mayer, 1961; Wiseman, 1969 (film)

Altenbaugh, 1991; Precourt, 1982

(continued)

w to

Table 1. Continued

Genre Illustrative types Central concern Variations

Foundations and procedures

Models of completed work

Folklore; storytelling

Participant observation study

Participant observer study'' (i.e., not claiming specific traditions such as those listed below)

Observer is present to participate, observe, and/or interview

Field study

On-site research

Naturalistic research

Collaborative research

Observe, interview, Field study enumerate

Grounded theory study

Jackson, 1987; Richardson, 1975

Bruyn, 1966; Gold, 1958;Jorgensen, 1989; Kluckhohn, 1940; Smith, 1979; Whyte, 1955; Woods, 1986

Adler and Adler, 1987

Zelditch, 1962

Brauner, 1974; Connelly and Clandinin, 1990; Denny, 1978

Cusick, 1973; Peshkin, 1978, 1986; Smith and Pohland, 1974; Waller, 1932; Wylie, 1957e

Herriott and Gross, 1979

Cuba, 1978; Lincoln and Cuba, 1985; Wolf and Tymitz, 1977

Filby etal, 1980; Jordan, 1985; Smith and Geoffrey, 1968

Becker et al., 1961

Glaser, 1978; Glaser Most of Louis M. and Strauss, 1967; Smith's work^ Strauss and Corbin, 1990

Phenomenology "I am a camera"; all description of social action from view of the actor

Ethnomethodology How people make sense and make visible the rationality of their everyday lives

Phenomenology g

Phenomenological sociology

Phenomenological psychology

Focus on interpretations

Focus on accounting practices

Conversation analysis

Ethnography of communication

Husserl, 1962; Mohanty, 1982; Natanson, 1979; Wann, 1964

Schutz, 1967

Giorgi, 1970

Douglas, 1970; Garfinkel, 1967; Handel, 1982; Heritage, 1984; Mehan and Wood, 1975; Psathas, 1979

Cicourel, 1973; Garfinkel, 1967

Moerman, 1988; Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson, 1974

Gumperz and Hymes, 1964

Denton, 1974; Heshusius, 1986; Scudder and Mickunas, 1985; van Manen, 1990

Cicourel et al., 1974

McDermott, 1976; McDermott and Church, 1976: Philips, 1972. 1983

(continued)

Table 1. Continued

Genre Illustrative types Central concern Variations

Foundations and procedures

Models of completed work

Ethnography

Constitutive j microethnography

Specific or focused ethnography

Cultural description Macro-ethnography and interpretation

Community study

Microethnography

Ethnology Systematic comparisons across ethnographies

Geertz, 1973; Malinowski, 1922; see also Kimball, 1955

Arensberg and Kimball, 1940

Brandt, 1982; Ettinger, 1983; Helm, 1985; Hymes, 1980

Erickson, 1975; Mehan, 1978, 1980

Erickson and Shultz, 1981; McDermott, 1976; McDermott and Church, 1976

Henry, 1963

Ogbu, 1974; Warren, 1967; Wolcott, 1967

Chang 1991; Spindler, 1982; Wolcott, 1973

° An earlier version of this table appeared in an article titled "Differing styles of on-site research" (Wolcott, 1982). The present version has been revised, updated, and, with technical help from Mark Horney, reformatted. Emphasis continues to be on identifying illustrative examples rather than providing a comprehensive survey. fcSingle-subject research is design-rigorous; it is included here only as an exception to underscore the distinction between "one-subject" case studies and Single Subject or "N = 1" research.

c Cuba proposes this procedure in educational research as a technique for checking the credibility of information, not as a full-blown method. d The term participant observation appears as early as Lindeman (1924;191). " Although Wylie's Village in the Vaucluse is not education-focused, it provides an excellent example of community study in the broad genre of participant observation rather than one ofthe more carefully prescribed types that follow. ' Given his proclivity for "grounded theory" and a customarily eclectic approach to research involving observation, interviewing, and enumera­tion, Louis M. Smith's work seems to fit here. See Smith's own discussion for an excellent review ofthe evolution of descriptive research in North America and Great Britain from the 1920s to the late 1970s (Smith, 1979). B Phenomenology has evolved along two disparate lines, one following Husserl in the "Continental" sense, the other providing a more experiential tradition in its "American" sense.

36 Harry F. Wolcott

Webb (1988) included biographical, historical, and philosophical views in theirs. I think qualitative inquiry is best served by leaving the door open to researchers who work in these traditions. Whether or not they themselves welcome this embrace is yet to be seen.

In passing, let me mention two techniques included in Fig. 1, Content Analysis and Nonreactive, or Unobtrusive, Research, that might seem to deserve places of their own in the table, although they usually augment some larger research effort rather than serve as end-products in themselves. Content Analysis procedures are employed by all kinds of researchers and have wide application. Paradoxically, Con­tent Analysis beckons qualitative researchers into the opposing camp, requiring them to devise and follow systematic counting procedures. Yet it presents those of opposite persuasion, the quantitative research­ers, with the ultimate qualitative question, "What counts?" Discus­sions about Content Analysis can be found in Krippendorff (1980) and Weber (1985).

The second set of procedures that may seem conspicuous by their absence in the table are those of Non-reactive Research (for the origi­nal source, see Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, and Sechrest, 1966). This type of observation is by definition so intentionally unobtrusive that researcher and research alike typically remain unknown to people in the setting. Although such observations may be made by any keen observer, I have not awarded Nonreactive Research the status of a full-blown approach that by itself leads to a major end-product of research.

Another major difference between the "tree" of Fig. 1 and Table 1 concerns Case Study and Case Study "Method." Case Study may have seemed conspicuously absent among the fieldwork strategies iden­tified in Fig. 1. In Table 1, it makes a prominent appearance as an end-product of field-oriented research. Recognizing Case Study as an end-product rather than as a strategy represents a change in my own thinking. Heretofore, I have regarded Case Study as a way to conduct research and, thus, have included it in any discussion of strategies or methods (Wolcott, 1982, 1990:65). In trying to situate Case Study on the "tree," however, it seemed to fit everywhere in general, yet no­where in particular. Although every strategy identified can be reported in Case Study format, Case Study does not implicate any particular approach. I suggest that case study can be most appropriately regarded as an outcome or format for reporting qualitative/descriptive work, but I propose that we examine critically the practice of regarding it as a qualitative "method" (cf. Merriam, 1988; Yin, 1984).

That "Case Study" and "Method" have been linked to create

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 37

"Case Study Method" seems both strange and telling. It is telling as a reminder of our pervasive defensiveness about method. To ward off accusations that we are lacking in method, we have acquired the habit of attaching that term to everything we do in qualitative inquiry. I make a conscious effort to use the word method reservedly, substi­tuting "technique," "procedure," or "approach" whenever one of these alternative terms can be used instead. I avoid the word "method­ology" altogether except when referring explicitly to issues (rather than applications) of method.

Perhaps we do interviewing and observing a disservice to label them as methods. With virtually all the end products identified in Table 1, a close inspection of origins usually reveals self-conscious efforts by early or vigorous proponents to emphasize that these are not methods at all. They are ways to conceptualize human social behavior and to describe and analyze it. Phenomenology is not a method. Ethno-methodology is not a method. Ethnography did not become a method until outsiders got hold of it; old-timers among cultural anthropologists still show a preference for the modest phrase "ethnographic research." We might speak and write with greater clarity and candor if we placed a moratorium on the term "method" for a few years, vowing to replace it in each instance with a carefully chosen alternative. In most cases, I believe we will discover that we are really talking about outcomes, although the language we use calls attention to method instead.

Before leaving the topic of Case Study, let me emphasize one further point from that section of the table—my inclusion of a category for Single-Subject, or "¿V = 1," research. As a footnote in Table 1 explains, these labels are included as exceptions, not as examples. Case Study can be defined in the broadest of terms and, as suggested above, seems improperly designated as a method; Single-Subject stud­ies, as employed in the field of special education, are, by contrast, design-rigorous. Our own "cases of one" should not be described as "Single-Subject" research, and our Ns of one (i.e., one informant, one school, one village) should not be confused with "N = 1" research.

In similar vein, I admit to some tentativeness in including the category Human Ethology as a qualitative approach. As the study of animal behavior, ethology is an old science, but human ethology, particularly the study of very young children in school settings, is a relative newcomer. I doubt that ethologists of any ilk would feel com­fortable finding themselves counted among qualitative rather than quantitative researchers. Although developed through "mere" de­scription, their observations are of a most exacting nature, their work a reminder of how powerful systematic observation can be.

38 Harry F. Wolcott

If you keep these caveats in mind, Table 1 should speak for itself as a guide to some of the more commonly found and frequently referred to outcomes in field-oriented research. Case Study is the first category, under the broad heading Genre, followed by Nonparticipant Observa­tion Study, Interview Study, and Participant Observation Study. For each category, additional information is provided under the headings Illustrative Types, Central Concern, and Variations. Entries under the heading Foundations and Procedures call attention both to original sources and to methodological treatises; entries under Models of Com­pleted Work call particular attention to studies in education.

I first drafted this table several years ago to track what I called "Differing Styles of On-Site Research" (Wolcott, 1982). Even then, my inventory of sources and models was necessarily incomplete. Today it is little more than a sampler, given the outpouring of new studies and the plethora of texts and articles devoted to procedures. Although recent works are included among the sources, particularly where they complement prior work or fill gaps, I have paid more attention to identifying earlier "classics" with which today's researchers may not be familiar. Among such classics cited in the table are Barker and Wright (1955), Becker, Geer, Hughes, and Strauss (1961), Henry (1963), Homans (1950), Jackson (1968), Smith and Geoffrey (1968), Whyte (1955), and Wylie (1957). The disciplinary roots of earlier stud­ies are often more explicit, and researcher explanations of what they were up to in departing from traditional approaches may prove helpful to a current generation of researchers who find themselves subjected to the same questions.

Qualitative studies completed today often fail to show evidence of the disciplinary lineages that spawned them. As two colleagues ob­served years ago, the innovative process in educational practice tends toward adaptation rather than adoption (Charters and Pellegrin, 1972), and that also holds among those who investigate such processes. Some educational ethnography bears resemblance to anthropological ethno­graphy, some educational ethnomethodology bears resemblance to sociological ethnomethodology, participant observation as practiced among some educational researchers reflects origins in anthropology or "Chicago School" sociology, and so on. But one does not ordinarily look to educational research for examples of these practices in their purest form. Most of the qualitative work in education shows more evidence of adaptation than of adoption. Nonetheless, adaptations can exhibit admirable hybrid vigor and serve as models for the work of others, outside the field as well as within it.

It is probably correct to say that there are as many versions of the

1, Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 39

work characterizing each major category as there are researchers work­ing in it. We are all self-styled researchers. Individual differences we bring to our work only exacerbate the infinite variation that different problems and settings present. In Table 1, I have identified subcate­gories that highlight important variations within approaches yet allow me to hold to a manageable number of major categories. I urge inter­ested readers to take up the task of revising and updating the table, using these headings and citations as a starting point for elaborating upon the contents and format in terms of a particular subfield or care­fully specified set of interests and purposes.

A tablelike format is not intended to curb the tendency of today's researchers to be eclectic, but it is intended to help researchers recog­nize where they are coming from and what has happened before. It is too late to invent qualitative research, but it will never be too late to critique how it is conducted, to suggest new variations and combina­tions of basic data-gathering techniques, or to probe new theoretical possibilities. And the quest for exemplary models for research, qualita­tive studies that are quality studies as well, is never ending.

Teaching and Learning about Qualitative Research

My purposes for this introductory chapter are realized if the discus­sion and the material summarized in the figure and table accomplish three objectives. The first is to provide a broad overview emphasizing the range and variety of forms that qualitative research can take. As noted, qualitative researchers need not feel constrained by existing forms, but they should be able to recognize and distinguish among them.

My second objective has been to present these approaches as variations and recombinations of the fewest possible data-gathering techniques. I am satisfied to number those techniques at three. Wed­ded to the idea that three categories are sufficient, I am ready to perform any word magic needed to make the categories all-inclusive (e.g, "experiencing" is taken to embrace all the human senses, most certainly including listening; "enquiring" includes anything that puts an observer in an active, intrusive mode; "examining" can include examination of virtually any artifact produced by someone else, be it fax, footnote, furniture, or photograph).

Most assuredly, the number of possible approaches might be set

40 Harry F. Wolcott

higher. Buchmann and Floden (1989:243), for example, report "at least 30 different ways of conceiving and doing anthropology," which I interpret to mean that between them they know, or are familiar with the work of, 30 anthropologists. Their more astounding estimate of the "number of possible alternative schemes an individual investigator might choose from, on a conservative estimate," was 220 or 1,048,576 (p. 247n, reporting an earlier discussion by Schwab [1978:245-246] on difficulties in settling boundary issues among disciplinary structures). On the other hand, anthropologists less self-conscious about method might take issue with my inflationary figure of three techniques, argu­ing that either of two inclusive terms "participant observation" or "fieldwork" is sufficient for identifying the taproot on which all cul­tural description is founded. If you are a serious candidate for qualita­tive research, you should feel at ease with a range between 1 and, give or take, 1,048,576. At the same time, your pattern-seeking proclivities should have alerted you to the seeming happenstance that, within that possible range, I identified three basic techniques, just as I divided idea-driven research into three subparts. I have a tendency to organize things in threes.

Third (see what I mean!), I hope the discussion, figure, and table serve not only to orient you to qualitative inquiry in general but also invite you to locate yourself in terms of the kinds of problems that attract you, the strategies by which you approach them, and the kind of end-product you seek.

An additional use the figure and table may serve is as an outline or syllabus for introducing others to qualitative research. For several years, I have offered a graduate seminar, "Qualitative Research in Education," a one-term survey course with a title that promises far more than can possibly be delivered. Used as an outline, Table 1 provides a useful synthesis for students and instructor alike as we set out to reconnoiter so huge a territory. Similarly, the "tree" of Fig. 1 emphasizes relationships among the strategies and, perceived as a working statement rather than fait accompli, poses questions about what goes where, what has been left out, and so forth. Students are better served to see themselves as part of that dialogue than to think the answers have all been worked out.

Among many issues on which I do agree with Lou Smith is the insightfulness of George Homan's observation years ago that "People who write about methodology often forget that it is a matter of strategy, not of morals" (Homans, 1949:330, cited in Smith, 1979:317). The notion of posturing presented here is intended to help qualitative researchers recognize that they make strategic choices. They also need

I. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 41

to recognize an ever-widening array of well-specified alternatives from which to choose, and to understand that any alternative—whether a long tradition like ethnography or a newcomer like portraiture—is based on a variation of the same set of information-gathering tech­niques employed by all humans-as-observers. Humble origins, in­deed! What Geertz has observed for anthropological insights holds true for everyone whose research stems from "intensive fieldwork in particular settings," that "like all scientific propositions, anthropologi­cal interpretations must be tested against the material they are de­signed to interpret; it is not their origins that commend them" (Geertz 1968:vii).

After a professional lifetime of trying, I remain unconvinced that we can "train" people to be interviewers or participant observers, although we can help "natural" fieldworkers become better ones (see Wolcott, 1981). We can provide students with opportunities to experi­ence fieldwork techniques for themselves under circumstances com­parable to the research settings they anticipate. For anyone who must formulate strategies without prior fieldwork experience, I return to the "tree" analogy to make some obvious recommendations: Don't overex-tend your reach; don't get out on a limb trying to do (or claiming you are going to do) more than is appropriate for the problem you are ad­dressing; and don't assume that any one approach is superior to any other without careful consideration of purposes.

As a case in point, I was once invited to join a research project for which my primary qualification was my experience as an ethnogra­pher. My primary responsibility, however, was to produce a case study describing the introduction of a newly developed series of programs for instructional television. From the outset, the conditions were clearly explained to me: "We want an ethnographer, but we don't want you to give us a full ethnography" (Wolcott, 1984:182). Thus, even for ethnographers, ethnography is not always the answer.

Posturing: To Position, Especially Strategically

To conduct any inquiry one must have both an idea of what one is attempting to accomplish and an idea of how to proceed. But posturing is not only a matter of identifying a strategy and capitalizing on re­searcher talents, it is also a personal matter influenced by the kinds of

42 Harry F. Wolcott

information and kinds of memberships (e.g., discipline-based associa­tions, formal divisions within the community of educational scholars) available to and valued by academicians individually. Prior profes­sional commitments (e.g., to the improvement of classroom practice) and future professional aspirations (e.g., to educational research groups or social science disciplines) also exert an influence and extract a corresponding commitment over the problems we select and the data-gathering techniques with which we pursue them. Those commit­ments consciously and unconsciously influence our identification of problems or lead us to redefinitions of problems that make them amenable to study in some particular way rather than in others.

As as dyed-in-the-wool ethnographer, it is hardly surprising (but not always easy for me to remember or to admit) that the research problems that draw my attention are invariably recast so that ethnogra­phy becomes the answer. I feel at a decided advantage with ethno­graphic techniques in my kit bag and a general orientation toward discerning the cultural dimensions of social issues. My research pos­ture is firm and unambiguous. I have always regarded "culture" as so neutral, so purely analytic a concept, that I almost went into shock when I encountered words by Martyn Hammersly and Paul Atkinson questioning that assumption:

When setting out to describe a culture, we operate on the basis of the assumption that there are such things as cultures, and have some ideas about what they are like; and we select out for analysis the aspects of what is observed that we judge to be "cultural". While there may be nothing wrong with such cultural description, the kind of empiricist methodology enshrined in naturalism renders the theory implicit and thus systematically discourages its development and testing. (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:13)

I no longer insist on the neutrality I once claimed for ethnography. But I do insist that cultural interpretation is what ethnography is all about (see Wolcott, 1987). I also feel some obligation to commend ethnography as a highly suitable strategy in educational research. It has a long tradition, yet remains infinitely adaptable. I also have found the cultural orientation to be as insightful a perspective on my personal life as it has been provocative in my professional one. It has become the position, or strategy, from which I ordinarily pursue research. I cannot resist making a modest sales pitch of my own on its behalf. For anyone searching for structure to guide field research and willing to accept the commitment to cultural interpretation that it entails—with a corresponding emphasis on sociocultural influences rather than on individual volition—the work of earlier ethnographers may point the

1. Posturing in Qualitative Inquiry 43

way. But if culture is unlikely to provide a helpful perspective on the issues you seek to understand, then feel free to avail yourself of the fieldwork techniques associated with it, and follow them out along some other branch that looks more promising.

Posturing in qualitative research is not something to avoid; it is something to approach with studied deliberation. No one can be "above" or "beyond" method, but with the new tolerance for qualita­tive inquiry, educational researchers need no longer feel mired in it either. Ideas are the heart of the matter. Malinowski's (1922:9) ex­pressed enthusiasm for "foreshadowed problems" and his concomi­tant disdain for "preconceived ideas" notwithstanding, one cannot embark upon research without preconceived ideas. Feigning "immac­ulate perception" (as it has lightheartedly been called) is another affection to avoid. Allow time to grow into a posture that "fits" your interests and talents and permits you to be as natural as the settings and situations you are trying to describe and understand.

In the interim, while evolving and refining your own initial pos­ture, do not fret that you might be contaminated by familiarity with the works and words of your predecessors. Read widely among several qualitative approaches and in depth among those you would emulate. Pay particular attention to completed studies, rather than to admoni­tions telling others how to proceed, for the ideals of research are sorely tested by the realities of the circumstances under which we work. Remain aware as well of an observation made earlier, that every quali­tative researcher is a self-styled one. As Eisner notes, "In qualitative inquiry, personal stylistic features are neither liabilities nor elements that are easily replicable. Qualitative inquirers confer their own signa­ture on their work" (1991:169).

No one "owns" ethnography, any more than anyone owns partici­pant observation or case studies. Even those who have styled an identi­fiable approach—e.g., Blumer's symbolic interactionism or Garfinkel's ethnomethodology of the 1960s, Eisner's educational connois-seurship/criticism of the 1970s, or the postmodern anthropology of James Clifford and George Marcus in the 1980s—must watch it take shape in the hands of others.

The more you desire the security and safety afforded by a firm grasp on basic research techniques, the more you may feel you should try to compensate by trying to capture "everything" in your observa­tions, your notes, and your reports. Keep in mind, however, that with­out setting your research problem, you have no basis forjudging what you need in order to bring a study to fruition. No matter how tenta­tively you go about it, you must position yourself adequately to have a sense of purpose that includes some hunch about those data that may

44 Harry F. Wolcott

prove of greatest use. I have elaborated elsewhere on the paradox that the real secret in descriptive work is not to gather as much data as possible but, rather, to get rid of as much data as possible, as soon as possible (Wolcott, 1990:35ff).

If it is your personal style to test and display prowess by venturing out into the unexplored, propose your study in terms of hopes and aspirations rather than promises, and do not cavalierly ignore the ad­vice or accomplishments of those who have gone before. Others will be quick enough to remark on your attainments and to make comparisons. With both feet firmly on the ground, observers watching from below always have advice to offer those dangling high above.

"When in doubt," states an old maxim highly appropriate both for conducting qualitative inquiry and for reporting it, "tell the truth." Tell what you saw (and asked about, and found in the work of others), all the while maintaining an objective eye for your own objectivity. In simple, direct terms, describe your data-gathering procedures accu­rately and adequately, but discuss them in terms of intended outcomes and your strategies designed to realize them. Deal in a similar, straight­forward manner with the ideas—hypotheses, hunches, whatever you choose to call them—that guided your pursuit and reveal how they, like your strategies, may have altered during the course of your work. Describe when and how theory played a role in your developing research—if it really did. Alternatively, describe what you seek in theory or how your work raises questions for colleagues more theoreti­cally inclined. In what direction are you looking for the theoretical underpinnings that you feel might (or "ought to") be there?

In the absence of any apparent theoretical link to validate your work or make it seem more impressive, try candor. You can hope that others more theoretically inclined or discipline-oriented will recog­nize and accept an implicit challenge to make connections between your data and your interpretations, or to suggest how your work fits with—or raises questions about—the work of others. There is contri­bution enough to be made through astute and carefully reported obser­vation, and modes and models aplenty to help you to achieve a posture rather than a pose while engaging in this work.

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